best 1TB external HDD for around £70

Musty Pie

Musty Pie

Musty Pie

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as per the title really.

not overly clued up on what to look for in external hard drives tbh and any help would be great.

Im after a 1TB (or around that size) hard drive to manually back up my pictures music and videos to0 (incase of a hard drive failure on my pc's.)
 
pc_mybook.jpg


I picked up a WD My Book Essentials 2 the other day, 1TB, £74, very quiet, auto power down and smaller than I expected :p

WD reliability and just over 3 years (1123 days) of warranty to boot.

Don't let it put you off that it's USB only, the Firewire/eSATA version was a bit more but for backing up purposes USB is perfectly fine I find.
 
We have a few silver ones of those Lacie disks here at work, they sit in the cupboard now as they got replaced by Lacie BigDisk units with Firewire x2 connections and extra cost (:D)! They're an almost closed unit so will get hot in use.

The My book has vent grilles all the way round the sides and back so plenty of breathing space.

I'd choose the Mybook over the Lacie, you're paying extra for the Lacie's "designer" casing and actually getting less airflow in the process!
 
right thanks for all the info mrk

just need to find somewhere that sells them now for a decent price as ocuk dont seem to have them :(
 
It's one I got off ebay for £12, it only comes in black so I sprayed it white =]
 
mrk said:
We have a few silver ones of those Lacie disks here at work, they sit in the cupboard now as they got replaced by Lacie BigDisk units with Firewire x2 connections and extra cost (:D)! They're an almost closed unit so will get hot in use.

The My book has vent grilles all the way round the sides and back so plenty of breathing space.

I'd choose the Mybook over the Lacie, you're paying extra for the Lacie's "designer" casing and actually getting less airflow in the process!
Click to expand...

Does the Lacie have metal casing? If so they may be using it as a heatsink. Either way, despite the air vents in the MyBooks, they still get very hot as there's practically no airflow, and the cases are plastic. One of mine that I took apart just after using it, the drive was actually too hot to touch for more than a couple of seconds.. I didn't plug it in straight away, but it must've been over 50°C at least.

Agree that USB should be sufficient.
 
Ok well as far as i can tell Mrk the essentials only has 2 years warranty not 3 ... but thats not a big deal i guess.

And the only difference in the both is connection types.
The home has additional fire wire/esata and the essentials only have USB

hmmm. I know that most external drives tend to get hot if kept on for long periods of time. I had an older mybook a while back and that got a tad toasty.

I hate making a decision.
 
Yes they are metal cases on the Lacie!

Which one did you have? I spent a whole night backing up on to the Mybook essentials 2 and it was barely warm, I even left my palm on the vents to feel for any heat being emitted since the casing is plastic but nope, no hot air. The drive inside must be running as cool under use as my internal WD drives (both a Black edition and Eco Green) which only get warm at around 37 degrees.

I believe Eco green drives are what the 'Essential' v2 edition My Books use aren't they? they run cooler, use less power and are quieter so this may explain it.

Edit, it's 3 years+ warranty, I got my numbers from the Western Digital products registered devices page:

wdwarrenty.jpg
 
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mrk said:
Yes they are metal cases on the Lacie!

Which one did you have? I spent a whole night backing up on to the Mybook essentials 2 and it was barely warm, I even left my palm on the vents to feel for any heat being emitted since the casing is plastic but nope, no hot air. The drive inside must be running as cool under use as my internal WD drives (both a Black edition and Eco Green) which only get warm at around 37 degrees.

I believe Eco green drives are what the 'Essential' v2 edition My Books use aren't they? they run cooler, use less power and are quieter so this may explain it.
*snip*
Click to expand...

Ah Eco drives could indeed make it cooler; this was a WD Blue 500GB from a MyBook (not sure about model; the original perhaps? :confused:) a couple of years ago. Now it's in my case it sits about 5*°C hotter than my F1s. And despite the case being plastic, it was still hot to the touch, in the centre of the sides anyway! Not sure about the vents.
 
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Ah ok well that clearly states 3 years in the screen dump. When i get my drive do i have to register the product so i can see warranty available on it etc?

Im sure the WD will be fine for what i need it for. I only want to use it to manually back up things like music pictures steam games etc incase of failure of my system drives.
 
Yup if you register when you get it you will be able to see warranty details as my screenshot above :)

It's based on your purchase date too btw which is good.

Only the black edition has 5yrs warranty, the mybook and green have 3 respectively :D
 
You don't need the invoice to register the product, only the serial number printed on the device itself or the box :)

The invoice would only really be needed if an RMA was requested (for proof of purchase I guess) but even then I don't think it would be fully required as other makers liek Samsung don't ask for invoice, just a valid serial and the drive being sent back.
 
ok thansk for all your help mate. Ill grab one tonight when i finish

Its about time i got a ext hdd tbh as the only one i had is a proper old 250GB one and its full to bursting.
 
once my OS drive begins to fill up (or my docs drive) I will get another My Book Essentials 2 edition and use them side by side of course, it's the only way to operate a smooth backup system :D
My icyBox dual enclosure was good but I wanted something a bit quieter and of course larger :p
 
yeah.. I know the perfect solutions for a "proper" back up but i just don't really have the space and the funds to throw at it at the moment.

Wait until I move in with the misses and ill have a proper IT infrastructure in place :D
 
Firewire 400/800 and eSATA + USB not Ethernet no, I think you're thinking of NAS units as only they have Ethernet but are not in MyBook form!
 
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